Devonshire Colts skipper Shannon Burgess has called into question the dedication to the cause of some of his team-mates.

Colts squeezed by Robin Hood of the Commercial League on Sunday by a goal to nil and Burgess acknowledges they will have to perform much better, both on and off the field, if they are to achieve success this season.

"In elimination competitions the most important thing is to win. Of course, you want to try and dictate play when your team plays against a Commercial Division team, but sometimes you can't do that," he said.

"In spurts we played really well. But our training habits have to be a lot better.

"We haven't trained and it showed today at times when guys' first touches were not there. If we were really tuned in physically I think a lot of time when we turned the ball over at critical times we could have got a better result from a better finish."

Colts were thumped in the league by Wolves recently but bounced back in the following games and Burgess thinks too many players might have thought they were back on track when in fact they still had some way to go.

"Some guys haven't trained and I don't know what the problem is but it is not acceptable. To lose 5-2 to any Premier Division team should be a wake-up call," he said. "After that game we strung together two good victories and maybe the guys are a little complacent.

"But there is no time for complacency. It is still really tight at the top and we want to be among the league leaders at the Christmas break and a loss against PHC next week could take us out of the top four.

"(We would) not necessarily be disappointed by not being in the Dudley Eve, but to be pushing towards the League championship towards the end of the season you must stay among the leaders."

Burgess said Sunday's Cup match was more about the result than the performance but he said the team would be working on the latter over the coming days so they were ready for the clash with the high-flying Zebras.

"This game is not important when you look at next week's game. The important thing today was to get through to the next round. Our name goes into the hat tomorrow (yesterday) and we just go from there," he said.

"We have a lot of things we need to work on but the most important thing is to just come together as a team."

By identifying problems now and not letting them fester, Burgess said he believed a solution could be found.

"I think it is possible. We are probably going to have a talk about it, have a chat and see where guys heads are at," he said. "Maybe it is just a situation where a guy will miss a Tuesday, someone else will miss a Thursday so you never have the complete team training together as a unit.

"Right now it is showing. White Hill is our home field and we have to play a lot more fluently than we have been playing and that is not going to happen if we do not train consistently together.

"We have the talent. It would be one thing if we did not have the talent and we were struggling and there was nothing we could do to play better. We know what we have to do, it is just a matter of doing it."